home on the decks
I found a place live for all those who registered curiosity and concern. A new home and studio is found, so I can relax and write, right. Well not until after a few laughs. Ok, the funniest thing I saw this weekend. Check out http://www.lejo.nu. Finger puppet animation, this is minimalist brilliance, truly an example of making something from nothing. Composed of no more that the puppeteers bare hand and two wooden eyes, Lejo’s cast of characters are rich, and his videos are hilarious. Click on the phonograph video for some finger puppet scratching. The robot vid is just as funny. The videos need a flash plugin to watch. The home page arrives in Dutch, for English click on GB (Great Britain).
The second funniest if not the slickest video I saw this week was from some pro x crossfade company that me and my friends have never heard of, but agreed they make sic videos. Check out. http://www.zippyvideos.com/3328389063290496/eb_proxfade_400_225_web/original
ok back to the decks
For a while I’ve wanted to write something about the chirp. This is very similar to the basic scratch, but demands quicker fader play. Start with the fader open on the tip of the sound fading it out as you play it and then pull back with an open fader. You only want to hear a bit of both the forward and back strokes
To do it fast or with speed control I reckon takes 3 or 4 sessions. At that point your fingers can start to behave. Combos can be created by speeding up the sound and switching between basic scratches and chirps. It’s a beautiful scratch that makes for high pitch percussive play over a track. Still it is one of those that require constant practice to keep it sweet and clean.
BTW, I saw a scary new feature this week in a Revolutionist practice jam. These have in part turned into serato appreciation sessions since Tim sprung for the lap top and serato box. After about an hour of heavy jamming our serato man Tim takes a pause to check how is needle is tracking on the groove. Serato gives you a visual representation of this, which kind of looks like a green coated infrared image of a rotating circle. The blur on the circle’s lines shows you the state of the needle. Holy begezuzz, Tim’s shure fuzzed out big time at 2 o’clock, and consequently both me and dj bad bowed out of testing our needles afraid of what we’d find. Kind of like what you can’t see won’t hurt you, just your records. Made me think though of replacing my needle soon, and I swear to god they must of got backing from Shure and Stanton to develop this feature.
Speaking of Stanton, the new SA-5, a fairly low-priced entry level mixer has fader eqs. This is another point for the fader family – did we say one handed eqing. I’m still wanting to try the Vestax 08 and have been trying to find a living reviewer for this new “ dj instrument.” In the meantime, I’m putting together a mixer compare as I’ve noticed it’s a favorite dj topic, but one that’s laden with more machismo than knowledge and in our commercial world more shaped by product placement than product worth. I’m taking the objective approach because I above all know the emotional attachment one can have with a mixer. Thus this is just a tech spec table. You decide what’s important to you, which at the end of the day is how you should pick your mixer.
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